Janis Joplin's sister has fashioned a biography from the letters Janis wrote to her family during her turbulent career. The book articulates the confusion of this artist's life in the drug culture of the late sixties. Winger makes little vocal distinction between Laura's narrative and Janis's letters. Winger's voice is simultaneously gravelly, sexy and raw, yet sweet and charming. It suitably conveys the pathos of Janis Joplin, a young star who wrote home about the lifestyle that killed her. One wishes for more than a few innocuous bars of Joplin's music at the program's conclusion. D.W.K. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine